Blogs from Lake Pukaki, South Island, New Zealand, Oceania

It’s always an aim in South Island to visit Mount Cook and to be able to see it , which I actually did back in 2011. So fingers crossed Jenny and I set off from Oamaru and again taking a route less travelled we came upon a place where there were Maori rock paintimgs and a mobile coffee van ! Yes it really was , not a camper van disguised as a coffee van .... like the famous Jucy Lucy vans ( I forgot to put a photo of one in the last blog). It’s not very often I get an uncomfortable feeling about a place ,Takirora, but as we walked under the rock face to see these paintings I didn’t like it , if there was an earthquake we wouldn’t stand a chance. My experience ... read more

It's going to be a day on the road today. Four hours from Twizel to Christchurch. An early highlight for a family from Queensland was the frozen windscreen and windows on the car when we got up this morning. It was still about 1 degree at 10 am checkout and I fortunately saw our neighbour tipping the kettle over his frozen windscreen and followed suit. The conditions last night couldn't be more perfect for stargazing. I braved the cold at about 10pm and while the sky was full of stars and the milky way was visible - it was probably on a par with a Maleny camp sky. But colder than Maleny and hard to stay out there too long on my own. Being so impressed with Lake Pukaki on the way down to Queenstown, I ... read more

So we're in Queenstown now and before our memories of Tekapo get swamped by the majesty of Queenstown, I want to reflect further on our time in and around Lake Tekapo. I was tired last night and fear that I didn't convey the depth of my love for Tekapo. I might even have been pronouncing it wrong. I was pronouncing it Tee-Car-Po but the post office lady, the waiters and the pharmacy attendant in Cromwell pronounce it Teh-Kah-Po. But, with all our walking and with feeling natures call half way through our first hike - we prefer to pronounce it Tay-Ka-Poo. Get it? Take a Poo? And hike might be too strong of a word. There's no special hiking boots or walking poles. We don't prepare and we don't take a compass. I prefer to call ... read more

It was another long drive back from Milford Sound. I bounced around in the back of the bus, slowly getting some writing done. I’ve sat here pretty much every day, for no particular reason. It’s not like there were assigned seats. The back seats were rough riding and often uncomfortably warm. They didn’t recline and you were always the last person off the bus. But you could say hi to people coming back to charge their phone and you could watch who was asleep and about to fall out of their chair on the next bend. These seats were charming in their own way. Though Mike might disagree as I’ve just accidently elbowed him in the ribs for the 3rdtime. There were a bunch of options for dinner, most of them busy, expensive or both. We ... read more

Leaving the Wizard's Glen behind we started the long road back towards Queenstown. The unsealed section seemed to go on twice as far as it had when we came out. Then the road back to Queenstown was fun but hard, mainly because the local white-van-man behind me was not at all happy that I was taking the tight windy road at only a few kilometres per hour above the speed limit. Beyond Queenstown we headed onwards towards Lake Tekapo. Up to this point we had seen so much of the stunning beauty that the South Island brings forth in abundance that we thought there couldn't be any more surprises... we were wrong! Our road led us through an agricultural area before gently lifting upwards. Before long we were quite high and then suddenly below us opened ... read more

Hello all, I'm sorry my blogs have been sporadic. And the images nil. But hope to make up for it on this blog. I think we will have Internet from now on. Sure hope so. We leave tomorrow morning for Dunedin which is further south and on the east coast (Pacific). We will leave the Southern Alps to return to the sea.Dundedin is the most European of all the New Zealand cities. I think Dunedin means Edenbourgh in Galic. Looking forward to some new architecture. BTW, only sheep with horns is the Merino buck. The scripture's Are certainly right about the sheep only hear their masters voice. They sure didn't hear mine. Remember to click on the images to enlarge. May the SHEEP be with you Lowell... read more

Day 2 on Contiki was not too bad. After a subpar breakfast we loaded up on the bus and headed out to Lake Ohau. We took stops every couple of hours at places and so the drive itself wasn't too bad. One of the stops was at a glacier fed lake. I forgot the name but I think one of them was something like Lake Pekaku. It was pretty amazing. The water was like this pastel blue with the snow tipped mountains in the backdrop. I had never seen water the color of that lake, which was pretty cool. We stopped at a couple lakes before we stopped for the night at Lake Ohau. On the drive we were told about the optional activities for the southern NZ island, and I think I almost checked everything. ... read more

26th March 2009 - ACHEY LEGS FOR CYCLING!!! I slept ok apart from the aching legs!! I have done a lot of exercise in my time but I have never felt pain as I did in my legs today after the walk down the mountain. My quads were killing and I could hardly walk properly they were that stiff. Partly my own fault as I failed to stretch once I had got to the bottom of the mountain but by gum…this was pain!! Nat felt pretty much the same and neither of us were looking forward to getting on the bikes today!! I managed to crawl out of bed and hobble to the shower. I hoped the warm water may help but no such luck…the pain was here to stay!! We then had a tasty breakfast ... read more

Today was another very jam packed day! We got up at 5.30am to see if we could spot some Penguins (the best time to see them is dawn and dusk). We went right to the end of Shag point, where 2 couples of penguins have been sited on occasions. We got to the hide and disappointingly nothing was there. As we walked back we took a detour towards the end of a small cliff. Dom (now known as the Penguin Hunter) started manically motioning for Bex to come to him - he'd spotted a yellow eyed Penguin not 5m away on the beach! It was so magical, for 5 minutes we sat and watched this awkward and shy little creature waddle towards the sea, checking over his shoulder every 15 seconds. This little fellow had a ... read more

The Polynesian Maori reached New Zealand in about A.D. 800. In 1840, their chieftains entered into a compact with Britain, the Treaty of Waitangi, in which they ceded sovereignty to Queen Victoria while retaining territorial rights. In that same year...more history